There’s a conversation going on about the lack of women being invited to speak at Christian conferences. Rachel Held-Evans highlighted the tiny minority of women speaking at one event, a US blogger Jonathan Merritt collated some stats on US conferences and now @god_loves_women has done something similar for UK conferences.

There is far more to creating an environment of equality where both women and men can thrive than having more women on platforms, but it does send a powerful signal of inclusion. The dominance of men in the public sphere of the church helps to perpetuate the feeling of living in a man’s world. When girls and women fail to see themselves represented, their own worlds become smaller with fewer opportunities. So it really does matter.

People who say ‘forget about gender, just pick the best person for the task’ show a stunning lack of awareness of firstly, male privilege…